NHS CHIEF DEFENDS DATABASE PLANS

His comments follow the loss of confidential medical information relating to 168,000 people.

David Nicholson said the new database would employ security systems "way beyond industry standards" to prevent data loss of the kind uncovered on Sunday. He insisted that the lost details were heavily encrypted in a way that should prevent them being accessed by unauthorised individuals.

The future of the new centralised IT system for the NHS was questioned after nine health trusts admitted losing patients' information in the wake of similar blunders at HM Revenue and Customs and the Driving Standards Agency.

Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley called for the proposed national database to be replaced by a network of local servers, which he said would allow far greater control of shared information. He said the loss of health details was "further evidence of the Government's failure to protect the personal information which we provide".

And computer security expert Professor Ross Anderson, of Cambridge University, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The question is not whether the data was encrypted or password-protected but the deeper question of why is it that somebody has access to 160,000 children's records? Surely that's not right.

"In private industry, what you might find is that where you have got a large database - for example, the 10 million customers of a bank - the access people have to it is very restricted and heavily audited and they are allowed access to only a small number of records at a time."

Information Commissioner Richard Thomas said he raised "concerns" with NHS managers about the Government's Connecting for Health project, which is intended to make patients' records accessible by computer to NHS professionals across the country.

He told Today: "We have had lengthy discussions with them. They are perfectly aware that we have concerns that there are risks in this area.

"They have got to be absolutely certain they have identified all the risks and are managing these very carefully indeed. Any mass loss of data from centralised databases would be very catastrophic, but medical information is of particular sensitivity."